Showing posts with label “product hopping". Show all posts
Showing posts with label “product hopping". Show all posts

Friday, October 5, 2018

Drugmakers play the patent game to ward off competitors; Kaiser Health News via NBC News, October 2, 2018

Sarah Jane Tribble, Kaiser Health News via NBC News; Drugmakers play the patent game to ward off competitors

"Yet the patenting of a small change in how an existing drug is made or taken by patients is part of a tried-and-true pharmaceutical industry strategy of enveloping products with a series of protective patents.
Drug companies typically have less than 10 years of exclusive rights once a drug hits the marketplace. They can extend their monopolies by layering in secondary patents, using tactics critics call “evergreening” or “product hopping.”
Lisa Larrimore Ouellette, a patent law expert at Stanford University, said the pharmaceutical industry gets a greater financial return from its patent strategy than any other industry does."